Here in Australia Halloween has only become popular in the last few years.   In our small town, you can not go trick or treating to any random house.   You have to put up a display so people know you are taking part and will be handing out sweets. The idea behind this is that the old and the vulnerable do not feel intimidated by strangers knocking on their doors at night.

I think this is such a great idea because the kids know they will be getting sweets rather than someone saying they are not doing Halloween. Or even worse people like me who sit in the back of the house with the lights off and don’t answer the door.  Because my kids are all grown up Halloween has no joy for me.  But unlike me, my niece loves Halloween and all that goes with it because she has kids.  So, I still have a reason to make Halloween crafts, which I love doing.

How to make an LED Halloween shadow Box

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Find A deep frame or shadow box

I had one of these shadow boxes left over after doing my daughters Bridesmaid invitations for her wedding. And being the proud new owner of a Cricut Explore Air 2 I am always looking for new ideas on how to use it. To do this project you don’t need to have a Cricut machine you can just cut out your silhouettes on black paper and glue them to the glass.  It will not be as much detail, but it can still be done.

I looked online for free Halloween graphics to use and found this great Halloween graphic for my background which was perfect for what I had in mind. I printed off the picture on an inkjet printer and used the back of the fame to mark out the area that I wanted to use and cut the image to size.  The image was then glued onto the back using craft glue.

Create your vinyl decals

I downloaded some free Halloween graphics off the internet.  I used silhouettes that I thought would look great against the background I had chosen. No Halloween scene would be complete without some witches and a cauldron and an old scary looking tree.  And to top it off I added some skeletons, bats and spiders. The images I used were all individual graphics that I put together to make my scene. The font used in this project was a free font from dafont called Halloween Too. All graphics and Fonts used are free for personal use. 

When I was happy with the layout of my design which I did in Cricut design space.   For the Cricut people out there I used Oracle 651 for this project only because it works the first time every time for me.  I put my vinyl on my Cricut mat and sent it to cut on my machine.  The Cricut did the rest.

Once the cutting was complete, I weeded the graphic ready for transfer. I cleaned my glass first using an alcohol wipe and then transferred all the images to the glass using  Cricut transfer paper.

Add LED lights

So, for the purpose of this tutorial, I improvised and use the LED remote control lights I had at home. But they turned out even better, so you have two options. The only issue using these is the box can only be used in the window because the lights need to be plugged into a USB plug.  And my way of thinking is it might be a bit safer inside, something this cute could get pinched. Haha.  The lights come with a self-adhesive backing, so you just have to pull off the tape and stick it around the edges of your shadow box.

Because I was now using the USB lights, I had to drill a hole in the lightbox for the cable to go through. I used a drill from my shed to make the hole.

The box still looked a bit plain, so I added some more text, bats and spiders to the frame to jazz it up some more.

The lightbox looks so good with the LED lights switched on.  An added feature to this box if you buy multicoloured LED lights is that you can change the colour of the lights.  I prefer red but they all look great.  The remote control also has a feature to have the lights flashing, strobe, fade or smooth which all give off different effects.

Another setting on the remote

Green setting

And to see this little cutie in action

More great ideas

mixed media Halloween bottles.

Or these really cute Halloween skull men.

Spooky Halloween mirror

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